Why is Brazil so often used in movies and books as a refuge for criminals on the run?

Factual Questions
1

I’m opening this thread so as not to hijack this one.

There are several movies, TV shows, novels, etc., where the criminal avoids American justice by heading to Brazil. (John Grisham is one that I’m sure has used this.) I assumed it was because they didn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.A., but in fact they do.

Of course the Ira Einhorncase shows that extradition treaties alone don’t guarantee prompt return. Short version: Einhorn was the lead suspect in his girlfriend’s death, then years later her body was found in his apartment, and when released on ridiculously low bail he fled the country. He was convicted in absentia because of aging witnesses (they wanted to be sure to depose them before they were dead). Meanwhile Einhorn settled in France (where he married the world’s stupidest rich woman) but when discovered it took years to extradite him due to French problems with the in absentia trial and objections to the death penalty (even though he was far from a prisoner of conscience, the evidence was overwhelming, and his case was the perfect death penalty case [remorseless murder proven beyond reasonable doubt with mountains of circumstantial and some near smoking-gun forensic evidence]).

So is Brazil like France in the Einhorn case: they extradite but it’s a pain in the ass? Or is it that Brazil’s an easy place for a fugitive with money to get lost and become a new identity? Or is it just a purely fictitious conceipt (like the Swiss and Cayman accounts that can’t be touched [they can be] or the clinic where qualified doctors do face changes without questions, etc.)?

2

There was the case of Ronnie Biggs who lived in Brazil for 35 years unable to be extradited to the UK because he had managed to father a child in Brazil. So there’s more than fiction here.

3

Quite a few fleeing Nazis spent time in Brazil. A lot went elsewhere, of course, but Brazil has Copa Cabana, Rio, carnivale etc. Paraguay has … ???

4

The U.S. and Brazil apparently had an extradition treaty as far back as 1903, so if this meme is a holdover from pre-treaty days, it’s remarkably long-lived.

5

According to one of my college professors (circa mid-1990s), Brazil would not extradite people accused of “economic crimes”.

So, if you were accused of murder or treason, Brazil would send you home. But if you were only a thief, you were safe.

6

You seem to not understand that the basis for France not extraditing him was precisely because they do not accept the death penalty and will not extradite to any jurisdiction which might impose it.

7

The strength of the evidence was irrelevant, from the perspective of the French justice system. For most western countries, the death penalty is a bar to extradition - either a complete bar, or only available if the requesting country gives assurances that the person will not face the death penalty.